Plagiarism for Students: Understanding and Avoiding: What is Plagiarism?

What is Academic Honesty?

Academic Honesty is about producing original work that includes thought, creation and synthesis of knowledge and gives proper credit to the sources you use.

Plagiarizing, whether intentional or by accident, is a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy. 

"All work submitted for academic evaluation must be the student's own. Certainly, the activities of other scholars will influence all students. However, the direct and unattributed use of another's efforts is prohibited, as is the use of any work untruthfully submitted as one's own."

Student Handbook, Academic Honesty, part 2.3.8.1.

What is Plagiarism?

• Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.
• Plagiarism is copying from the Internet, from a web page, from artificial intelligence writing, or from another person without giving credit.
• Plagiarism is using ideas which are not your own without citing those ideas.
• Plagiarism can be applied to ideas, research, art, music, graphs, diagrams, websites, data, books, newspapers, magazines, plays, movies, photos, solution manuals, and speeches.

Why is it wrong?

• It is stealing.
• It takes away from another's original work.
• Students who plagiarize hurt themselves because they do not learn the process of academic achievement.
• It undermines academic and moral values.
• Consequences can be severe and can result in expulsion from Xavier.